Envision Academy students set sights on college

ON THE EAST BAY

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, October 13, 2009

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When Envision Academy seniors Farouk Alkaifee and Javaree Gaines won $10 iTunes gift cards for a presentation they made to the Oakland charter school organization's board of directors, they didn't run out to buy the latest hit song or download a new ring tone.

Instead, they bought SAT apps for their cell phones.

Now that may sound like odd - or even nerdy - behavior from a teenager, but when you understand the charter school's mission and the students' mantra, it makes sense: Everybody goes to college. Everybody. There are no exceptions.

About 70 percent of the students come from low-income families and qualify for the federal government's school lunch program, said Rick Gaston, Envision Academy's principal. But so far the academy, which has 1,200 students at its four high schools in San Francisco, Oakland and Hayward, has achieved astonishing results.

This fall, 93 percent of the 110 students who graduated in June from its two San Francisco schools are enrolled in college. Among that group, 82 percent chose four-year schools. Eight students went to University of California campuses.

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"Every student has that spark within them, but you have to create an opportunity for learning," said Bob Lenz, a co-founder of Envision Academy.

Alkaifee and Gaines are on track to be part of the Oakland school's first graduating class of 35 students in June. The students' achievement is all the more remarkable because in many instances, they will be the first in their families to go to college.

Although their parents may not have known firsthand what it takes to get to college, they had that aspiration for their children. For many, the initial attraction to Envision Academy was that it provided students with a safe environment, Lenz said.

The school is at the YWCA building on Webster Street in downtown Oakland, a Julia Morgan design. Inside, the old building with an atrium five stories high resembles a well-established, well-heeled East Coast private school - dripping with tradition and finished oak.

Students learn through experience, by doing, in both real-world and academic settings. Projects run the academic gamut, from car-crash projects that teach students the science of physics, to history assignments that require students to identify 18th century philosophers and explain how their thinking influenced the Founding Fathers.

Professional internships are strongly encouraged for juniors and seniors, and all students present their work publicly before peers, parents and instructors.

Gaines, a 17-year-old senior, took an internship with the East Oakland Boxing Association on 98th Avenue last summer, but not to practice the pugilistic arts. He tutored other youngsters and worked on community projects for the group.

Gaines won $2,500 in a best-business-plan contest sponsored by a local youth center and used the money to buy a greenhouse, which has been reassembled on the grounds of the boxing association. The food grown in it is used to feed kids in the association's after-school program, and Gaines has hopes of establishing a weekly farmers' market on 98th Avenue.

His friend Alkaifee interned at a Berkeley engineering firm over the summer.

At Envision Academy, there is no "just getting by" academically, said Christiana Tolliver, a junior at the Oakland school.

Grades lower than "C" result in no credit toward graduation. Academic progress is closely monitored, and students are expected to meet the entrance requirements to the UC system by the time they graduate.

Tolliver responded kindly when two friends suggested she join them at a continuation high school in the Oakland Unified School District. "I didn't say it to them, but the district has given up on them," Tolliver said.

"When you go to school here, your mind changes," she said. "We're all trying to get into college."

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